I don't think of my life as a cliche, but I'm a cliche eccentric. Complete with a strange name - I mean, who's named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really?

So it`s always helped me to have a foundation, an ideal to strive for and goals. It`s hard for me to be disciplined and plan things.

There are lots of actors who are awful people, but nobody talks about them being awful because they've made billions.

Once is more than generous for any lifetime.

If you play Mark Twain and he's not funny, you are definitely not playing Mark Twain. That was the biggest challenge, in some ways. Writing and performing jokes that can come out of that brilliant delivery system he constructed: the friendly, avuncular truth-teller.

I'm a character actor, but I look like a leading man.

I live on a ranch that's larger than Manhattan. That's a weird circumstance.